Big finish. I guess. And a month late. What could cause a comic by the mighty John Romita, Jr. to ship late? I am disinclined to think it was him, but things happen. Well, we’re back in the arena, Hulk recapping at us. It’s 2007 and this is issue 5 of a 5 issue book, if people don’t know what’s going on, it’s their fault. Also there’s a text page at the front that DOESN’T recap anything, which is stupid. So Hulk spends 2 pages telling Reed why his “obedience disk” is about to make him kill Tony like we haven’t been beaten over the head with this info for 4 issues. Then Reed takes the deathblow, but of course he doesn’t kill Tony, because Hulk didn’t want him to. It’s all crap.
Sentry smashes Hulk out of the arena and through several other buildings in some truly impressive Romita, Jr. destruction. And we quickly learn the Sentry is crazy, consumed by some kind of bloodlust and eager to beat on the Hulk. Why? Who knows? The massive destruction continues for a few pages.
So the Sentry is now at the heart of a gigantic tornado of fire, truly unleashing his “power of a million exploding suns” for the first time, and everyone has realized they’re in trouble. Good guys and bad guys join forces to protect people, Tony Stark is accessing a bunch of satellites for reasons I can’t discern, and now it’s up to Hulk to stop the Sentry.
What are these sound effects? Jvmmm and spjzzz to you, too, I guess. Fight fight fight, Tony finally gets control of some satellites, I still don’t really know why, then the Hulk/Sentry fight explodes somehow, and as the smoke clears, everyone now sees Bruce Banner and Robert Reynolds fighting instead of Hulk and Sentry.
Hulk starts beating on Miek for pages, it seems like should have been a puddle by now, as Miek reveals…
Womp womp. Very cool color work on the flashbacks by Strain there, the little bursts of color.
Forever is a lot shorter than it used to be. Well, I guess the idea is Hulk is so mad he’s like some kind of radiation bomb now, I dunno, and he says, “Do it! Before I break the world!” which is very silly, and then Tony’s satellites fire various beams of red energy at Hulk. Whatever they are.
No idea what just happened. What a terrible series. That’s Hulk’s son, Skaar, inexplicably rising from the surface of the planet we were told got blown up, an adult. How? I don’t care. In the wake of this, I think Hulk was off the board for a while. The Incredible Hulk comic became The Incredible Herc, about Hercules. Really. Skaar got his own book immediately, and briefly, as I recall. And Jeph Loeb, the reigning champ of bad comics in this time, immediately introduced Red Hulk, a mysterious new Hulk who, yes, was red, and who was eventually revealed to be Thunderbolt Ross somehow. I don’t know, I sure didn’t read that nonsense. This series was more than enough to put me back off Hulk and his world until the late 2010s, when Al Ewing’s Immortal Hulk became the best Hulk comic ever made. Also I don’t know if Rick is dead here, but he’s fine eventually, don’t worry.
Well, that’s that. Spider-Man’s involvement really dropped off after the middle of this. Had I remembered how little he’s in the back of this series, I woulda done a summary post instead of 5 of them. Spider-Man also appears, in his black costume, in all 3 issues of the awkwardly named World War Hulk: Aftersmash: Damage Control, Dwayne McDuffie’s last turn with his creation. But, like almost all the superheroes in that series, he just stands in the background of various panels while people talk. It’s pretty weird. The heroes all show up to help clean up after this series, and thus are sort of the audience right alongside the reader as the Damage Control team and others have their story. That series also introduced a new Goliath, Bill Foster’s nephew Tom, who appeared in 3 panels of WWH 4. He had a role in a few of the tie-ins chronicling his journey to becoming Goliath, and he’s still the big G today, although he’s appeared in few comics since. But, with this, we’re finally done with the absurd Back In Black. You can see why I broke it up like this. Imagine sitting through all these insane detours waiting to get to One More Day. What a stupid, stupid time. But we’re past it now, so we can finally see the new status quo…. Just kidding, it’s way past time to check back in with USM.